I represent the first generation who, when we were born, the television was now a permanent fixture in our homes. When I was born people had breakfast with Barbara Walters, dinner with Walter Cronkite, and slept with Johnny Carson.
Read the full "Pre-ramble"

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Actress/comedienne Kat Kramer and legendary film and television agent Budd Moss will join us on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Mar. 31-Apr. 3 at the following times and venues:

Share-a-Vision Radio San Francisco Bay Area Friday 3/31 7pm ET, 4pm PT 10pm ET, 7pm PT Click on the Listen Live button at KSAV.org Use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KSAV Hear us on the KSAV channel on CX Radio Brazil Hear us on your cell phone or landline number by dialing 712-432-4235

Indiana Talks Marion, IN Saturday 4/1 8pm ET, 5pm PT Sunday 4/2 10am ET, 7am PT Click on the player at IndianaTalks.com or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in Indiana Talks

If you’re familiar with Child of the ’70s—the popular web series that pays homage to classic sitcoms of the 1970s—you know Kat Kramer as Frances Rye, the soap opera star who is a much better diva than she is an actress. Kat also plays two other characters on Child of the ’70s, both of which she will incorporate into her other venues. We’ll ask Kat about that, plus we’ll talk about some of her comedic influences, when she joins us in our first hour.

Kat Kramer is also the daughter of actress Karen Kramer and legendary film producer/director Stanley Kramer, while 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the release of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, the iconic film directed by Stanley Kramer that is still timely today. For more information on upcoming events that will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, visit StanleyKramer100.com. Season Five of Child of the ’70s will premiere later this year, while episodes from the first four seasons are available at OutTV.com, FunnyorDie.com, GayDirect.com, TheOfficialChildofthe70s.com and YouTube.

Our second hour will include a return appearance by Budd Burton Moss, the legendary Hollywood agent and talent manager whose career spans the Golden Age of Hollywood and Golden Age of Television right on through the digital age. One of the great raconteurs in the entertainment industry, Budd shares many of his stories in a two-volume memoir, All I Got Was 10 Percent: What It’s Like to Be a (Famous) Hollywood... (Vol. I) and Hollywood: Sometimes the Reality is Better Than the Dream (Vol. II). All Got Was 10 Percent is a sprawling narrative that covers Budd’s early career in Hollywood (including his efforts as an actor and bullfighter, his lifelong friendship with Sidney Poitier, the circumstances that led him to become an agent under the legendary Martin Baum, and the triangle between he, Carolyn Jones and Aaron Spelling), while Hollywood: Sometimes the Reality is Better Than the Dream chronicles Budd’s later career, including his efforts on behalf of Rita Hayworth, Tom Bosley, John James, Hunter Tylo and former MPAA president Jack Valenti, and the role he played in casting some of the most iconic shows in TV history.

Monday, March 27, 2017

As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history,the more that fact and legend become intertwined.It's hard to say where the truth really lies.

March 28, 1967

Raymond Burr starred in a TV movie titled "Ironside."

The movie was later turned into a television series. The show revolved around former San Francisco Police Department (SFPD)
Chief of Detectives Robert T. Ironside (Raymond
Burr), a veteran of more than 20 years of police service who was forced to
retire from the department after a sniper's bullet,
to the spine, paralyzed him from the waist down, resulting in him having to use
a wheelchair.
In the pilot episode, a TV movie, Ironside shows his strength of character and
gets himself appointed a "special department consultant" by his good
friend, Police Commissioner Dennis Randall. He
does this by calling a press conference and then tricking Commissioner Randall
into meeting his terms. In the pilot, Ironside eventually solves the mystery of
the ambush. He requests Ed Brown and Eve Whitfield be assigned
to him.

March 30, 1962

Jack Paar films his final episode of The Tonight
Show.

Paar had hosted the show
since July 1957, six months after Steve Allen stepped down. Paar was known for
his emotional outbursts, which included walking off the set of The Tonight
Show on February 11, 1960, to protest network censorship of his jokes. The
unflappable Johnny Carson took over as host starting in October 1962.

March 31, 1992

Dateline NBC premieres.

NBC had long attempted to catch up with popular
newsmagazines on CBS and ABC, which consistently drew top ratings, but failed
until the debut of Dateline NBC. In November 1992, the show caused a
scandal when it was revealed that an expose on General Motors trucks was rigged
to show a dramatic explosion.

Dateline NBC aired an investigative report on Tuesday, November
17th, 1992, titled “Waiting to Explode.” The 60 minute program was about General
Motorspickup trucks
allegedly exploding upon impact during accidents due to the poor design of fuel
tanks. Dateline's film showed a sample of a low speed accident with the fuel
tank exploding. In reality, Dateline NBC producers had rigged the
truck’s fuel tank with remotely controlled explosives. The program did not
disclose the fact that the accident was staged. GM investigators studied the
film, and discovered that smoke actually came out of the fuel tank 6 frames before
impact. GM subsequently filed an anti-defamation/libel lawsuit against NBC
after conducting an extensive investigation. On Monday, February 8, 1993 GM
conducted a highly publicized point-by-point rebuttal in the Product Exhibit
Hall of the General Motors Building in Detroit that lasted nearly two hours
after announcing the lawsuit. The lawsuit was settled the same week by NBC, and
Jane Pauley
read a 3 minute 30 second on-air apology to viewers.

The New Alice in Wonderland (or What’s a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?) is a forty-eight-and-a-half-minute animated TV-movie, written by Bill Dana (who also appears in its cast), produced by Hanna-Barbera, and broadcast on the ABC network on March 30, 1966, in an hour slot (including commercials). The songs were by the then-hot Broadway team of composer Charles Strouse and lyricist Lee Adams, who were most famous for Bye Bye Birdie. The songs were orchestrated by Marty Paich, who also provided musical direction; plus devised and arranged that part of the underscoring that was drawn from the musical numbers. The rest of the underscoring was drawn from the vast library of cues that Hanna-Barbera's most significant (and at that time sole) in-house composer Hoyt Curtin had written for various animated series.

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

The closest I came to doing anything that I wanted to do was to try and check and see what industries were just starting out. There was plastics and television, and I figured television had to be more fun than plastics

-Chuck Barris

Charles Hirsch "Chuck" BarrisJune 3, 1929 – March 21, 2017

Chuck Barris died yesterday, of natural causes at his home in Palisades, New York at the age of 87, where he lived with wife, Mary Clagett.

Barris was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Edith (Cohen) and Nathaniel Barris, a dentist. He attended Drexel Institute of Technology where he was a columnist for the student newspaper, The Triangle. He graduated in 1953.

Barris got his start in television as a page and later staffer at NBC in New York City, and eventually worked backstage at the television music show American Bandstand (then filmed in Philadelphia), originally as a standards-and-practices person for ABC. Barris soon became a music industry figure. He produced pop music on records and television, but his most successful venture was writing "Palisades Park". Recorded by Freddy Cannon, it peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks (June 23–30, 1962), the biggest hit of Cannon's career. Barris also wrote or co-wrote some of the music that appeared on his game shows.

Barris was promoted to the daytime programming division at ABC in Los Angeles and was put in charge of deciding which game shows ABC would air. Barris told his bosses that the producer/packagers' pitches of game show concepts were worse than Barris' own ideas. They suggested that he quit his ABC programming job and become a producer.

Barris formed his production company Chuck Barris Productions on June 14, 1965.

Barris became successful during 1965 with his first game show creation, The Dating Game, on ABC. On this show, which was hosted by Jim Lange, three bachelors or bachelorettes competed for the favor of a contestant of the opposite sex blocked from their view. The contestants' sexy banter and its "flower power"-motif studio set were a revolution for the game show genre. The show would air for eleven of the next fifteen years and be revived twice in the 1980s and 1990s.

The next year Barris began The Newlywed Game, originally created by Nick Nicholson and E. Roger Muir, also for ABC. The combination of the newlywed couples' humorous candor and host Bob Eubanks's sly questioning made the show another hit for Barris. The show is the longest lasting of any developed by his company, running for a total of 19 full years on "first run" TV, network and syndicated. Game Show Network airs a current version with Sherri Shepherd. Interviewed on the NPR program Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! on August 1, 2009, Barris said that the Newlywed Game was the easiest program he had developed: "All I needed was four couples, eight questions, and a washer-dryer."

Barris created several other short-lived game shows for ABC in the 1960s and for syndication in the 1970s, all of which revolved around a common theme: the game play normally derived its interest (and often, humor) from the excitement, vulnerability, embarrassment, or anger of the contestants or participants in the game. Barris also made several attempts through the years at non-game formats, such as ABC's Operation: Entertainment, a variety show staged at military bases akin to USO shows; a CBS revival of Your Hit Parade; and The Bobby Vinton Show, a Canadian-based syndicated variety show for singer Bobby Vinton (produced in conjunction with Chris Bearde and Allan Blye). The last was his most successful program other than a game show.

The somewhat shy Barris rarely appeared on camera, though he once dashed onto the set of The New Treasure Hunt to throw a pie at emcee Geoff Edwards. However, Barris became a public figure in 1976 when he produced and served as the host of the talent contest spoof The Gong Show, which he packaged in partnership with television producer Chris Bearde. The show's cult status far outstripped the two years it spent on NBC (1976–78) and the four years it ran in syndication (1976–80). As with some of Barris' other projects (including The Newlywed Game), it was at one point possible to see The Gong Show twice daily, a relatively uncommon feat in the years prior to cable TV's expansion into the commercial market.

The planned host of the NBC show was John Barbour, who did not understand the show's concept and considered it a straight talent show as opposed to Barris's parody concept. Barris scrapped Barbour at the last minute; in order to save the show, Barris followed the advice of an NBC executive that he should host the show himself.

Barris' jokey, bumbling personality; his accentuated hand-clapping between sentences (which eventually had the studio audience joining in with him); and his catchphrases (he would usually go into commercial break with, "We'll be right back with more er... STUFF...", occasionally paired with shifting his head to reveal the ubiquitous sign behind the stage reading simply "STUFF," and "This is me saying 'bye'" was one of his favorite closing lines) were the antithesis of the smooth TV host (such as Gary Owens, who hosted the syndicated version in its first season). Barris joined in with the eccentricity of the format, using unusual props, dressing in colorful and somewhat unusual clothing (such as the occasional hat pulled over his head, if not his eyes), he became yet another performer of the show, and for many, quite a cult hero. Dubbed "Chuckie Baby" by his fans, Barris was a perfect fit with the show's goofy, sometimes wild amateur performers and its panel of three judges (including regulars Jamie Farr, Jaye P. Morgan, Rex Reed and Arte Johnson). In addition, there was a growing "cast of characters" including an NBC stage carpenter who played "Father Ed," a priest who would get flustered when his cue cards were deliberately turned upside-down; Canadian comedian Murray Langston, who as "The Unknown Comic" wore a paper bag over his head (with cut-outs for his eyes, mouth, and even a box of Kleenex), and "Gene Gene the Dancing Machine" (Gene Patton), arguably the most popular member of the "cast", the show's prop man, who would show up and dance whenever the band played the song "Jumpin' at the Woodside".

In the early 1980s, Patton was even pointed out by tour guides of incoming NBC tours as his onscreen character, while at the same time adhering to his more typical off-camera work duties.

One Gong Show episode consisted of every act appearing singing the song "Feelings", which was popular at the time. One of its most infamous incidents came on the NBC version in 1978, when Barris presented an onstage act consisting of two young women slowly and suggestively sucking Popsicles. Another incident, which most missed originally, was when during a "Gene Gene, The Dancing Machine" episode, Jaye P. Morgan slowly undressed, and in a brief sub second shot, opened her blouse to reveal her bare chest.

In 1980, he starred in and directed The Gong Show Movie. The film flip flopped at the box office. Its storyline and approach, though including a number of Gong Show segments, was a bit less "zany" (another favorite Barris phrase) than some audiences may have expected.

The Gong Show has had three subsequent revivals, one under Barris' title (with Don Bleu) in 1988–89, one on The Game Show Network in 2000 called Extreme Gong and another with current format owner Sony Pictures Television (with Dave Attell) in 2008.

Barris continued strongly until the mid-1970s, when ABC cancelled the Dating and Newlywed games. This left Barris with only one show, his weekly syndicated effort The New Treasure Hunt. But the success of The Gong Show in 1976 encouraged him to revive the Dating and Newlywed games, as well as adding the $1.98 Beauty Show to his syndication empire. He also hosted a short lived primetime variety hour for NBC from February to April 1978, called The Chuck Barris Rah-Rah Show, essentially a noncompetitive knock-off of Gong.

The empire crumbled again amid the burnout of another of his creations, the 1979–80 Three's a Crowd (in which three sets of wives and secretaries competed to see who knew more about their husbands/bosses).

This show provoked protests from enraged feminist and socially conservative groups (two otherwise diametrically opposed viewpoints), who charged that the show deliberately exploited adultery, to advocate it as a social norm. Most stations dropped this show months before the season was over as a response to those criticisms. At the same time, Newlywed lost the sponsorships of Ford and Procter & Gamble and earned the resentment of Jackie Autry, whose husband and business partner Gene Autry owned the show's Los Angeles outlet and production base, KTLA, because of its supposedly highly prurient content. So strong were the feelings of the Autrys that Newlywed came close to being expelled from the KTLA facilities, but the show was discontinued by the syndicator before any action occurred. Gong Show and Dating Game also ended otherwise successful syndicated runs in 1980 because of the Three's a Crowd and Newlywed controversies, likely because stations were fearful of community and advertiser retribution on account of Barris' reputation.

During the winter of 1980, Barris attempted to rebuild by bringing back another game show that was not an original of his, Camouflage, in which contestants answered questions for the chance to locate a "hidden object" (such as a toaster) concealed within a cartoon-type drawing. Although a noncontroversial format, it lasted only a short time in syndication. By September 1980, for the first time in his company's history, Barris had no shows in production.

After a year's inactivity, Barris revived Treasure Hunt again in 1981 in partnership with the original 1950s version's producer, Budd Granoff, who had become his business partner (the show itself was created by its original host, Jan Murray). Unlike with the 1970s version of Treasure Hunt, Barris did not have direct involvement with the production of the show itself. This revival, a five-day-a-week strip, lasted only one year.

Barris, by this time living in France, came back again in 1984 and formed Barris Industries. He formed a distributor arm called Bel-Air Program Sales (later Barris Program Sales) and an ad-sales barter called Clarion Communications (later Barris Advertising Sales). After a week-long trial of The Newlywed Game on ABC in 1984 (with Dating Game emcee Jim Lange), Barris produced the daily Newlywed Game (titled The New Newlywed Game) in syndication from 1985 to 1989, with original host Eubanks (and in 1988, comedian Paul Rodriguez). The Dating Game returned to syndication the next year for a three-year run (the first year hosted by Elaine Joyce, and the next two hosted by Jeff MacGregor). The Gong Show would also return for one season in 1988, now hosted by "True" Don Bleu. All of those shows (except for the one-week trial run of Newlywed on ABC) aired in syndication, not on the networks.

On a personal note: That is me on the The ALL NEW Dating Game with Jeff MacGregor

Chuck Barris sold his shares of Barris Industries, Inc. in 1987 to Burt Sugarman and left to move back to France and was no longer directly involved in his media company. In 1988, Barris Industries acquired the Guber-Peters Company. On September 7, 1989, Barris Industries was renamed as the Guber-Peters Entertainment Company. After the shows' runs ended, Sony Corporation acquired Guber-Peters Entertainment (formerly Barris Industries) for $200 million on September 29, 1989, a day after Sony Corporation of Japan acquired Columbia Pictures Entertainment.[9] The sale was completed on November 9, 1989 after Sony's acquisition of Columbia Pictures Entertainment a day earlier. Sony revived Dating and Newlywed from 1996 to 1999. Sony also revived The Gong Show in 1998, this time as Extreme Gong, a Game Show Network (GSN) original production. Three's a Crowd would be revived as All New Three's a Crowd, which, like Extreme Gong, was a GSN original. A few years after Extreme Gong ended, Sony planned to revive the show again under its classic name and format for The WB Television Network, but this version was never realized. Sony and MTV Networks' Comedy Central collaborated on a fourth Gong Show revival as The Gong Show with Dave Attell in 2008; this did sell and aired on Comedy Central from July to September 2008.

One more attempt at reviving an old game show that was not his own originally resulted in an unsold pilot of the 1950s-era game Dollar a Second, hosted by Bob Eubanks. It had at least one showing on GSN, and has since become part of the collector/trader's circuit. Two more unsold pilots were called Bamboozle and Comedy Courtroom.

In Barris's autobiography,Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, he claims to have worked for theCentral Intelligence Agency(CIA) as anassassinin the 1960s and the 1970s. A 2002feature film version, directed byGeorge Clooneyand starringSam Rockwell, depicts Barris as killing 33 people. Barris wrote a sequel,Bad Grass Never Dies, in 2004. The CIA denies Barris ever worked for them in any capacity. After the release of the movie, CIA spokesman Paul Nowack said Barris' assertions that he worked for the spy agency "[are] ridiculous. It's absolutely not true."Barris publishedDella: A Memoir of My Daughterin 2010 about the death of his only child, who died in 1998 after a long struggle with drugaddiction.

Good Night Mr. BarrisStay Tuned... or should I say, "We'll be right back with more... STUFF"Tony Figueroa

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Investigative reporter, former criminal defense attorney and cable news legal analyst Mark Shaw will join us on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Mar. 24-27 at the following times and venues:

Share-a-Vision Radio San Francisco Bay Area Friday 3/24 7pm ET, 4pm PT 10pm ET, 7pm PT Click on the Listen Live button at KSAV.org Use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KSAV Hear us on the KSAV channel on CX Radio Brazil Hear us on your cell phone or landline number by dialing 712-432-4235

Indiana Talks Marion, IN Saturday 3/25 8pm ET, 5pm PT Sunday 3/26 10am ET, 7am PT Click on the player at IndianaTalks.com or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in Indiana Talks

Most of you probably remember Dorothy Kilgallen because of her weekly appearances on What’s My Line?,the popular CBS Sunday night prime time game show that made her household name during the 1950s and early 1960s. Some of you may also think of Kilgallen because of the mysterious nature of her death in the early morning hours of Nov. 8, 1965: a case that was officially ruled accidental, but which remains unsolved to this day.

Kilgallen, however, was a pioneer in many respects, leaving her mark in print and radio, as well as television, long before Oprah Winfrey. She was also a Pulitzer Prize-nominated, nationally syndicated columnist for the New York Journal-American, and a crack investigative reporter whose penchant for finding truth and justice—and, particularly, her series of articles that investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy—won her admiration from news reporters and editors alike.

Investigative reporter and former criminal defense attorney Mark Shaw is the author of The Reporter Who Knew Too Much. Author of twenty-five books, and onetime legal analyst for CNN,ESPN and USA Today, he will talk about the life, death and legacy of Dorothy Kilgallen—and why reopening her case matters—when he joins us in our second hour.

The first hour of this week’s show will include Part 2 of our tribute to comedian “Professor” Irwin Corey as part of The Sounds of Lost Television.

Monday, March 20, 2017

As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history,the more that fact and legend become intertwined.It's hard to say where the truth really lies.

March 21, 1980

J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman), the
character millions loved to hate on TV’s popular nighttime drama Dallas, was shot.

The shooting made the season finale, titled A House Divided, one of television’s
most famous cliffhangers and left America wondering “Who shot J.R.?” Dallas fans waited for the next eight
months to have that question answered because the season premiere of Dallas was delayed due to a Screen
Actors Guild strike. That summer, the question “Who Shot J.R.?” entered the
national lexicon. Fan’s wore T-shirts printed with "Who Shot J.R.?" and "I
Shot J.R.". A session of the Turkish parliament was suspended to allow legislators a chance to get
home in time to view the Dallas
episode. Betting parlors worldwide took bets as to which one of the 10 or so
principal characters had actually pulled the trigger. J.R. had many enemies and
audiences were hard-pressed to guess who was responsible for the shooting.

CHILD OF TELEVISION @ iTunes

Pre-ramble

I represent the first generation whom, when we were born, the television was now a permanent fixture in our homes. When I was born people had breakfast with Barbara Walters, dinner with Walter Cronkite, and slept with Johnny Carson.
Read the full "Pre-ramble"